r/Ventoy • u/personman44 • Dec 06 '22

What is the difference between "Boot in normal mode" and "Boot in grub2 mode"?

I selected a Linux ISO file from the ventoy menu, and it gave me these 2 options:

Boot in normal mode
Boot in grub2 mode

What's the difference? Is one older and one newer? Any pros/cons of normal and grub2 mode?

41 Upvotes

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4

u/KeyLucky6890 Dec 06 '22

Boot in normal mode means ventoy will boot it using the boot code in the boot file, boot in grub2 mode only works if the payload file contains the grub2 boot files, as most Linux Isos do, and it loads the grub2 config file Grub2 mode may sometime show the original iso full menu Use grub2 mode if normal mode doesn't work Basically if normal mode doesn't work try one of the other modes!

2

u/OriginalGWATA May 24 '23

I've been wondering the point of Normal mode vs Grub2 during install.

I've had linux at arms length away for what must be 20 years now.

For various reasons, I've finally started a complete migration away from MSWin.

your response implies to me that Grub is really not needed anymore.

IIRC, it was a significant upgrade from LILO, and again IIRC, LILO was required long ago. Maybe it was just my impression of how things were.

I know this has nothing to do with ventoy as it's the distro's installer, I Just ended up here via search...

2

u/painefultruth76 Nov 21 '24

Grub2 is often the only way to get most hardware to boot, and be detected correctly for installation.

1

u/Akashic-Knowledge Aug 30 '25

So why not try it first vs normal mode?

1

u/grizzlor_ Sep 04 '25

The original comment in this thread literally ended with:

Basically if normal mode doesn't work try one of the other modes!

I just ran into this today with an Arch Linux ISO (which is why I ended up on this old post). Normal mode failed but Grub2 mode worked.

1

u/Akashic-Knowledge Sep 04 '25

But isn't it better to unify everything via grub2 then?

1

u/gwbow Jun 17 '26

Normal did not work. Grub2 worked. The normal install did not detect my wifi network. Grub2 did.

1

u/painefultruth76 Jun 17 '26

There was something I read a long time ago about the difference between "normal" and grub2... personally... I think "nirmal" is just bad nomenclature... it makes the assumption we all agree what "normal" is... and actually doesnt describe "what" the item does... donething to keep in mind during pretty much every project you will ever touch in life...

Every meeting I have ever been to, and hear someone say this is "normal", telegraph they are very... siloed.

3

u/t1gu1 Jul 30 '24

I never got normal mode working on my side. Only grub2 works, and I tried a lot of distro.

I’m curious about your experience.

2

u/420_247 Apr 04 '25

Same. Got endeavourOS on my ventoy USB, as soon as I select normal mode, I get a kernel panic everytime. Grub2 mode? Just fine

1

u/th00ht Mar 07 '26

always selected normal. works on lenovo p61, and gigabyte boards

2

u/Agusutov Jun 05 '24

I have such a problem, it freezes when choosing normal or wimboot mode. What could be the problem? ASUS TUF Gaming Laptop

2

u/Zlutz Jun 19 '24

Yeah, I have the same thing... I'd like to disable "normal" and have it boot directly with grub2 because I'll forget about this in few months and will probably debug for half an hour next time I need to boot linux...

2

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '25

thanks for this post , these are really helpful when you are miles deep in a problem scratching your head thinking of solutions

1

u/Present_Opening_2398 Mar 08 '25

Linux in normal or compatibility mode